Stubborn Sofia

So, here's the situation: Our dear sweet, adorable, cute-as-a-button, Sofia can be far from cute and adorable sometimes. Especially at 2:00 am! The past 6 months (yes, about a month before baby Emmy came along), she started randomly waking up in the middle of the night (most of the times to go to the bathroom, which we praise since she's not going in her bed, right?). But when she does wake up, she wakes up screaming that she has to go to the bathroom, so we calmly (and sleepily) take her to the toilet, let her do her thing, then walk her back to her bedroom. However, when we turn around to say good night, she refuses to lay down and go back to bed. Half asleep, she starts throwing a fit that she doesn't want to sleep and that she wants us to simply crawl into bed with her, or let her crawl into bed with us.

The easy thing would be to let her crawl into bed with us, cuddle up and let our family of 5 all get a good night's sleep (minus mom who keeps getting kicked in the ribs throughout the night). However, we've tried to be strict and told her that she has to sleep in her bed and mommy and daddy have to sleep in their bed. She still doesn't budge. I finally give up and say okay, then I'm going to bed. Good night.

However, as soon as I start to turn around, she throws another fit. I try explaining again that it's in the middle of the night, and that it's time for bed and that everybody else is sleeping. She still just stands there stiff as a board seemingly ignoring me. When I try picking her up to lay her in her bed, she throws another fit. So, I walk out again. I let her cry until she finally makes her way into our room. (Poor Samuel who shares a room with her is an angel and usually, despite the screams, manages to sleep through the whole thing).

When she does come into our room, I patiently walk her back to her room, tell her good night and leave again. She immediately starts screaming. I let her scream until she comes into our room, and then again, patiently walk her back to her room. However, about the "umpteeth" time of doing this, I can only stay so patient. Because really the only thing she wants is for us to hold her, stroke her and snuggle down with her. I do hold her and sing her a song before leaving back to my room, but that doesn't cut it. Sometimes she cries that she can't see, so I turn on her night light, however, she immediately starts crying that it's too bright and hurts her eyes. We've bought a night-light recently which seems to work. But, she's simply stubborn.

So, awhile ago, we made a rule. She can cry all she wants in the middle of the night, but she has to do it outside because everyone inside is sleeping. So, we walk her to the back door, open it, and let her out. She obviously doesn't like being out in the dark, cold night by herself, so she calms down. When she does she comes back in, we walk to her room, we say good night, only to have the entire process to start over again!

Sometimes this process lasts for hours. Sometimes, only a half hour. But, the thing is, she's so stubborn and so tired, she doesn't even know herself what she wants. She can't simply fall back to sleep for some reason.

This happens only randomly and lately, the days that she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night, she wakes up in the morning having wet her bed. Every morning whether or not she was up in the night, she always wakes up happy and ready for the day like nothing even happened. We make it a point to try to talk to her and let her know, we weren't happy last night because she wouldn't go to sleep and she always quickly agrees that tonight, she'll sleep the whole night.

Lucky for us, Emmy, like her brother, sleeps like an angle through the whole thing. But, it's been exhausting lately and we have no idea what to do. What's the best way to go about handling her in the middle of the night, when our patience is spread thin? How can we change this behavior?

Sorry for such the long entry, but any advice would be helpful. Thanks.